This
file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have
collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date
back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a
collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on
the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I
have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate
topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous
information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save
space and remove clutter.

The
comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no
claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please
respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The
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>Many
of the national breed clubs have books or magazines that give the

>history
of the breed. I documented the Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound) for

>inclusion
in my heraldic device using an article in a breed magazine.

>Many
such articles are written by scholar and historians of the breeds in

>question
and contain extensive bibliographies for the purpose of

>documentation.

Whilst
I do not doubt the ability of most breed clubs to trace the ancestry

of
their 'breed' there are dangers in following this path:

As
a keen member of the Deerhound Club (one of the oldest breed clubs) it

is
very noticeable the 'debate' between the Deerhound supporters & the

Wolfhound
supporters which is the older breed ... this has not a little

pride
attached to it ... so the objectivity of some breed clubs can be 'a

little
bit stretched' at times.

This
is further complicated by the fact that 'breeds' as we know them today

can
not be directly equated to medieval dogs. A comparison is the difference

between
breeds & types of Horses (in Britain at least) where a cob is a type

but
a Welsh Cob Section D is a breed. The difference lies in pedigrees &
without

them
you have a type. Since pedigrees are a c19th thing (as regards dogs) even

similar
names may not necessarily mean the same dog. For example c14th/c15th

English
sources do list staghounds, buckhounds, deerhounds etc. but it would be

a
poor historian who equated these directly to either the deerhound as we know

it
today (or even the stag hound ... which is more like a large beagle today!).

Also
consider the problems that the medieval horse has caused ... the Shire horse
is always described as the descendent of the Destrier ... but whatever its

origins
... it is not the same thing now.

The
best you can do is to look at the illustrations & read the original
descriptions (for which Gaston Phoebus & Edward of York are the best
sources I know) & approximate ... but be honest about the fact that these
MAY not be the same. Hence when talking about my deerhounds to the public I stress
that to the

medieval
man these would have been lumped into the category of greyhound

(much
as a deerhound, borzoi afgan wolfhound etc. are all sighthounds).

Edward
of York does differentiate between large & small greyhounds ... to be

used
according to the quarry ... but they are all greyhounds.

Dave

From:
manfred at internetland.net (James M. Politte)

Newsgroups:
rec.org.sca

Subject:
Re: Hounds in Period

Date:
Fri, 01 Nov 1996 15:59:32 -0600

>
As a keen member of the Deerhound Club (one of the oldest breed clubs) it

>
is very noticeable the 'debate' between the Deerhound supporters & the

>
Wolfhound supporters which is the older breed ... this has not a little

>
pride attached to it ... so the objectivity of some breed clubs can be

>
'a little bit stretched' at times.

Hmmm...
We don't seem to share this kind of conceit on this side of the

ocean.
The BCOA acknowledges that our breed is old in its origins but

could
hardly be considered the same dog that was being bred and used for

hunting
in the Middle Ages. The earliest documentation that I've

encountered
was a paper by a Russian scholar (translated to English) who

mentions
the breed in a form truer to our present type in the late

16th/early
17th century. I don't doubt that Scottish Deerhounds are an

older
breed but I could honestly care less whose dog is the "most

period".
Borzoi barely squeaked in under the wire to be considered

"period"
as far as I'm concerned, and that's good enough for me, AND the

heralds.

>
This is further complicated by the fact that 'breeds' as we know them today

>Vet program (by the way, they do an
awsome openhouse usually every other

>late winter/early spring, if at all
interested contact them and get on a

>contact list, it is incredible.

>

>As to the ancient breeds, the ones I
have been doing the most reading of

>recently seem to have all come from
the same type of small dog of the

>bichon background that ship captains
had with them. It seems that in the

>place that were isolated (islands mostly,
either by water or mountains) the

>few dogs left with them have
reinforced their genetic distinctions through

>a small breeding pool for hundreds of
years. I hope to soon be able to

>pull together info on this and on the
different ones, might actually do it

>pretty and submit for display with
A&S if anyone else wants to see what I

>find. (not sure where in line of
things to do this will fall)

>

>Also, I would love info on other
tailed dogs, know

>that Corgies, Australian Shepards and
Heelers will throw with a short or

>non tail, are there any others?

From:
"Lilie Rose Sinclaire" <lilyrose.sinclaire at gmail.com>

Date:
January 29, 2008 10:44:59 PM CST

To:
"Barony of Bryn Gwlad" <bryn-gwlad at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject:
Re: [Bryn-gwlad] dogs in Ansteorra

OMG
- I just remembered a story from the Renn Faire in AZ that involved our puppy
when he was little. Maybe the SCA situation is similar...

So
we go out to the Faire with our brand new white puppy who is so tiny he fits in
a basket, remembering that in the previous year we saw several people with dogs
on leashes at the Faire. This time, the troll person says, "Sorry we
cannot allow you to take your dog in." Not one to be easily turned away
when a dog is involved, I inquired "Why not? He won't bother anyone and I
*promise* he will be with us all the time." The attendant replies
"Well, that's not really the issue. Last year we had a falconry demo and
someone brought their Teacup Chihuahua. You figure it out."

Lilie

From:
"willowdewisp at juno.com" <willowdewisp at juno.com>

Date:
May 19, 2008 8:55:31 PM CDT

To:
ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org

Subject:
[Ansteorra] History and dogs

We
talked about giving dogs awards. In the middle ages some people made one a
saint.

Willow

From
a period source St. somebody's words not mine.

370.
The sixth thing to say is about insulting superstitions, some of which are
insulting to God, others to man. The superstitions which attribute divine
honors to demons or any other creature insult God. Idolatry is one example, or
when wretched women sorcerers seek salvation through the adoration of saddles
(sambuca) to which they make offerings, through the condemnation of churches
and relics of the saints, through carrying their children to ant-hills or other
places in search of healing.

This
is what they did recently in the diocese of Lyons. When preaching there against
sorcery and hearing confessions, I heard many women confess that they had
carried their children to St. Guinefort. I thought he was some saint. I made
inquiries and at last heard that he was a certain greyhound killed in the
following way. In the diocese of Lyons, close to the vill of the nuns called
Villeneuve, on the land belonging to the lord of Villars-en-Dombe, there was a
certain castle whose lord had a baby son from his wife. But when the lord and
lady and the nurse too had left the house, leaving the child alone in his
cradle, a very large snake entered the house and made for the child's cradle.
The greyhound, who had remained there, saw this, dashed swiftly under the
cradle in pursuit, knocking it over, and attacked the snake with its fangs and
answering bite with bite. In the end the dog killed it and threw it far away
from the child's cradle which he left all bloodied as was his mouth and head,
with the snake's blood, and stood there by the cradle all beaten about by the
snake. When the nurse came back and saw this, she thought the child had been
killed and eaten by the dog and so gave out an almighty scream. The child's
mother heard this, rushed in, saw and thought the same and she too screamed.
Then the knight similarly once he got there believed the same, and drawing his
sword killed the dog. Only then did they approach the child and find him
unharmed, sleeping sweetly in fact. On further investigation, they discovered
the snake torn up by the dog's bites and dead. Now that they had learned the
truth of the matter, they were embarrassed (dolentes) that they had so unjustly
killed a dog so useful to them and threw his body into a well in front of the
castle gate, and placing over it a very large heap of stones they planted trees
nearby as a memorial of the deed.

But
the castle was in due course destroyed by divine will, and the land reduced to
a desert abandoned by its inhabitants. The local peasants hearing of the dog's
noble deed and innocent death, began to visit the place and honor the dog as a
martyr in quest of help for their sicknesses and other needs. They were seduced
and often cheated by the Devil so that he might in this way lead men into
error. Women especially, with sick or poorly children, carried them to the
place, and went off a league to another nearby castle where an old woman could
teach them a ritual for making offerings and invocations to the demons and lead
them to the right spot. When they got there, they offered salt and certain
other things, hung the child's little clothes (diapers?) on the bramble bushes
around, fixing them on the thorns. They then put the naked baby through the
opening between the trunks of two trees, the mother standing on one side and
throwing her child nine times to the old woman on the other side, while
invoking the demons to adjure the fauns in the wood of "Rimite" to
take the sick and failing child which they said belonged to them (the fauns)
and return to them their own child big, plump, live and healthy. Once this was
done, the killer mothers took the baby and placed it naked at the foot of the
tree on the straws of a cradle, lit at both ends two candles a thumbs breadth
thick with fire they had brought with them and fastened them on the trunk
above. Then, while the candles were consumed, they went far enough away that
they could neither hear nor see the child. In this way the burning candles
burned up and killed a number of babies, as we have heard from others in the
same place.

One
woman told me that after she had invoked the fauns and left, she saw a wolf
leaving the wood and going to the child and the wolf (or the devil in wolf's
form, so she said) would have devoured it had she not been moved by her
maternal feelings and prevented it. On the other hand, if when they returned
they found the child alive, they picked it up and carried it to a swiftly
flowing river nearby, called the Chalaronne [tributary of the Saône], and
immersed it nine times, to the point where if it escaped dying on the spot or
soon after, it must have had very tough innards.

We
went to the place and assembled the people and preached against the practice.
We then had the dead dog dug up and the grove of trees cut down and burned
along with the dog's bones. Then we had an edict enacted by the lords of the
land threatening the spoliation and fining of any people who gathered there for
such a purpose in future.